Information & Library Science

adjective belonging or relating to the specific area where you live or work

Medical

adjectiveconfined to one part

Slang

noun (someone who is) provincial, unsophisticated, boorish. The usage was further popularised by its adoption as a catchphrase for the tv comedy series The League of Gentleman.

Travel

noun the nearest pub to where someone lives

Origin & History of “local”

Latin locus meant ‘place’ (it became in due course French lieu, acquired by English in the 13th century, and was itself adopted into English as a mathematical term in the 18th century). From it was derived the verblocāre ‘place’, source of English locate (18th c.) and location (16th c.), and the post-classical adjective locālis, fromwhich English gets local. The nounlocale is a mock frenchification of an earlier local (18th c.), an adoption of the French use of the adjective local as a noun.